His background has always been the bakery business, which he learned at an early age from his Grandmother as he spent many hours in the kitchen learning the basics of cake decorating. Greg took this skill and expanded into sculpting and drawing which eventually took him to France as an exchange student where in gained experience in pastisseries and boulongeries. Since that time Greg has had many experiences in bakery research and development, ran bakery operations for local upscale grocers, at one bakery he combined five in-store bakeries into one main baking facility and developed the delivery programs to deliver fresh baked goods to the 5 stores on a daily basis.

He was asked to join a new startup company called Moonstruck Chocolatier and was the first Vice President of Marketing and Sales with a goal to go National in 3 years and International in 5 years. This was exceeded and they were published in a guide to the world’s most famous chocolates within 5 years. During this time he also started his own company called Dynamic Consulting, assisting companies grow to new levels by directing them and providing them with tools for success. Somewhere in there Moonstruck Chocolates split and a merge occurred with Marsee Bakery. He then worked full time as the Vice President and ran Dynamic Consulting simultaneously. Life was good.

July 2001 brought his life to a halt, he was diagnosed with late stages of Type B large cell lymphoma. The cancer was so widespread that there was little hope for survival and he had to drop everything he had going and give everything he had into fight for his future. This was a battle of high dose chemotherapy, MANY surgeries, day after day of radiation and it ultimately came down to a bone marrow stem cell transplant and this whole process took more than 2 years.

Why join Komak, as he says his diagnosis and treatment took all of his savings. He was a single male and there really weren’t any resources for him financially. These people are me and I want to be able to help someone else through their journey.

He is happy to say “I made it.” After his recovery period his stepfather and stepbrothers appreciating his skills in running businesses asked if he would consider running the family business known as Oak Knoll Winery. The founders were ready to retire and the stepbrothers were interested in making the wine and needed a President of the company to run the operations side. The opportunity to grow an existing business, help family and do something different seemed like a challenge he was up for. After all, any challenge now seemed like nothing compared to his 2 + year battle with cancer.glint@oakknollwinery.com